'Digital health' movement in focus at tech show

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With an app, a game or a gadget, technology startups and major companies across all sectors are trying to tackle some of the thorniest problems in health and medicine.

The

Hoyland said the company has other programs such as using mobile apps to provide rewards to pregnant women to encourage prenatal visits. The women are given a gift certificate but if they receive the right care, "we can offset those costs and keep them healthier," she said.

"It turns out gamification of health really works," said James McQuivey, analyst at

"This past year alone, we've seen a surge in businesses, healthcare companies and school districts seeking to offer weight loss programs that will better engage and excite the staff and, ultimately, more successfully achieve health and overriding fiscal program goals," HealthyWage CEO David Roddenberry said in a statement.

Other firms are finding ways to use

The program, which has not yet been publicly marketed but is available for free, was developed by an SAP employee to coordinate care among several specialsts for a child with a rare medical condition.

"This gets around privacy concerns because the care is controlled by the guardian or individual," said Rishi Diwan, a product manager at SAP who showed the app to CES visitors.

Diwan said the app can help people with special needs, and that the company is working with the Alzheimer's Association and Breast Cancer Foundation to generate interest in the platform.

As of now, the app is not part of any effort to generate revenue but "we are thinking about ways to work on electronic medical records," he told AFP.

Other exhibitors at CES showed exercise arm bands and other gadgets to track factors such as heart rates, or real-time monitoring of blood sugar for persons with diabetes. Another showed a digital fork that monitors caloric intake and vibrates if its user is eating too much too fast.

Some use low-power Bluetooth-connected patches to transmit data to a smartphone, a godsend for Bastian Hauck, a competitive sailor with type 1 diabetes who attended CES to promote the Continua Health Alliance for mobile wellness.

Hauck told AFP the Bluetooth patch he wears transmits to a smartphone and enables him to monitor glucose in real time, helping him determine the best eating and insulin intakes. He shares that information with other diabetics.

Treating diabetes, Hauck said, "is like a guessing game. You have to do it 24/7. There is no rest."

Although he could write down his readings, the wireless app "makes it easier" and provides extra motivation by being part of a community battling the same disease.

NFL quarterback Matt Hasselbeck showed CES a new skullcap from a company called MC10 that can fit under the helmet of a football player or other athlete and measure the impact of a collision, in an effort to better deal with concussions and similar injuries.

"In the NFL, you get hit in the head a lot," he said, adding that this is a major concern not only for professionals but for youth sports.

"This doesn't prevent a concussion but it's another set of eyes on the athlete," Hasselbeck added. "Our hope is that we can change the culture."

Dell updates Vostro desktop lineup with Intel's Sandy Bridge platform

With laptops starting to receive the Sandy Bridge treatment from their respective OEMs, it should probably come as no surprise that other computing devices such as desktops and tablets are bound to receive the same upgrade in time. After all, performance is often a major selling point, and simply parroting Intel's claims of the new microarchitecture being x% faster than the previous Nehalem platform is usually enough to bring in sales.

While most OEMs would probably opt to fit their consumer-oriented products with Intel's latest platform to capture more sales from the tech-savvy crowd, it appears that Dell has got slightly different plans in store. Instead of appealing to the hardware enthusiast, the company has opted to give its business desktops first dibs on Sandy Bridge, with the new Vostro 460 being what Dell touts as the first ever Sandy Bridge business desktop tower to hit the market and is now available for sale locally.




True enough, a quick visit to Dell's online store reveals that the new Vostro 40 business desktop is as real as it can get, and clicking the 'Customize' button on the product pages reveals that users have a choice of configuring their Vostro 460 with three different Sandy Bridge-based processors.




In addition to sporting the latest Intel Core i5 and Core i7 processors, Dell has also bundled the Vostro 460 with a 320GB hard disk, although additional options exist in the Dell online store. Those who feel that 320GB is not sufficient may op to have a 1.5TB hard disk instead, while options for RAID are also available, namely RAID 0 and RAID 1.



Lastly, Dell also offers users the option of bundling the Vostro 460 with a graphics card for better video and graphics performance in the event the built-in Intel HD Graphics 2000 are simply not up to par with consumer needs.




But that's not all. Apparently, Dell has taken to heart the old saying of "all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" by announcing that customers will have the choice to include an internal Blu-ray optical disk drive. Apparently, this option was added in to ensure that workers can let loose after a long and hard day at work by watching Blu-ray movies and playing games on their Vostro. And no, we are not making this up.



Reference: Dell Singapore

Even Sportlifestyle company PUMA has come up with their own PUMA PHONE..

The PUMA PHONE is a touchscreen phone with a simple user interface. According to PUMA, it uses the similar platform as the Samsung Galaxy, though that's all we know about it. You can set the background colorto eitherred or black (which is fairly limited), but the menu option icons are fairly large to ensure you press on the right one.

On the right is the camera/shutter and volume control buttons (whichalso performs as the camera zoom control).

On the left, we find a microSD card slot for users who require more memory storage.

At the rear is a the solar panel for solar charging of the phone, as well asa 3.2-megapixel camera with LED flash. PUMA said that ten to fifteen minutes of solar charging will provide approximately one minute of talk time. The intention of solar charging is when you go jogging (as an example), you cansecure the phone to your arm with an armband and has the solar panel facing outward. That way, it helps to charge the phone while you are on the go which in turnhelps to be environment friendlytoo.

The PUMA PHONE also allows you to get connected to your social applications such as Twitter and Facebook easily. In addition, you can access PUMA World on the phone and get the latest news, product information and even sports-related stories.

According to PUMA, the phone will first be available in Europe, and other parts of the world later. It maycome to Singapore,but the likelihood of having telco tie-up with PUMA seems pretty unlikely. Moreover, the phone isn't at all very affordable considering its a smartphone. The PUMA PHONE will be retailing around 400 Euros, andif its dollar-to-dollar, that could be an affordable S$400 (or an expensive S$800 if converted from Euros). Well, we could only wait and see how this goes.

Exclusive hands on pictures of ASRock's new Gen3 motherboards

Last week details of ASRocks new PCI Express 3.0 motherboards appeared on the web and today we bring you exclusive hands on pictures of the Z68 Extreme3 and Z68 Extreme7. ASRock will be using the new styling for all of its upcoming motherboards, so expect a lot more black and gold in the future, the only exception being the Fatal1ty boards of course.

Neither board holds any real secrets beyond the specs that were posted last week, but this is the first high-resolution, detailed picture of the Z68 Extreme3. A couple of things with missed with regards to the rear I/O of the Z68 Extrem3 includes a PS/2 port and optical S/PDIF out. The board also sports a POST80 debug LED which is an unusual feature for a board this far down in the pecking order. The Z68 Extreme3 is in our opinion looking like the Z68 board to get from ASRock if youre looking for something that wont be horrendously expensive, yet offering a well-balanced feature set.

Moving on we have the Z68 Extreme7 and were still quite flabbergasted that ASRock has made a board like this. All of the heatsinks are screwed on and the attention to detail is very high. Some interesting things that we thought we should point out is that ASRock is using two SATA 6Gbps controllers from ASMedia for this board, but more interestingly it also has a pair of Broadcom Ethernet controllers. A peculiar addition we also noticed is a pin-header for a PS/2 port, although no actual port is supplied as far as were aware.

As it happens, a UK online retailer has listed a price for the Z68 Extreme7 and as we mentioned last week, its going to be expensive. The board is listed at £250 (S$490) which makes it one of the most expensive Z68 boards out there pretty much only beaten by Asus Maximus IV Extreme-Z so far.

Wed like to pick up on something here, namely PCI Express 3.0. According to ASRock, any current 6-series motherboard should at least in theory work with PCI Express 3.0, but as soon as you involve lane switches you run into problems unless the switches are PCI Express 3.0 compliant. Sandy Bridge does not have hidden support for PCI Express 3.0 and you wont be seeing any performance advantage until Ivy Bridge comes out, or at least this is not something that ASRock has seen in their testing.

Weve put a few more pictures of the boards on the next page, alongside with a few pictures of the Fatal1ty Z68 Professional Gen3. Do note that the boards we looked at were pre-production boards and the heatsink finish isnt that of final products. ASRock is also running a competition at the moment where you can win one of its new Gen3 boards, so if youre keen on getting one, head over to the competition website.

Drivers Issues Delay HD 3870 X2 Launch

Fudzilla talked about AIB partners stocking up on Radeon HD 3870 X2 anddriver issue delaying the launch where VR-Zone has heard similar news. One AIBpartner told us that there will be more HD 3870 X2 out in the market than HD3870. The 8.453 drivers which reviewers are using and even the shipping CDbundle has performance issues with certain games like Crysis. The fix should beout soon hopefully.

Asus launches 3 new notebooks F8P, U3S amp; U6S

The ASUS F8P series brings the ultimate expression of mix and match. The hand picked and crafted premium leather adds tactile warmth to the notebook design while the painted surface keeps it sleek. The new level of fusion is further complemented with state-of-the-art computing technologies, including Intel® Centrino® Duo Processor Technology and Genuine Windows Vista® Business operating system, offering both the look and the power of stylish computing on the go.

Mix & MatchAvailable in Amazing White and Galaxy Black, the F8P offers everything that the ASUS Leather Series carries in a whole new way. The unique LCD cover with half leather and half painted surfaces is a bold statement of contrast yet the softness and the sturdiness complements each other to create a new computing style. In addition to the tactile enjoyment, the F8P also adopts the unique bamboo hinge that’s with integrated power button on the side, offering ergonomic operating convenience.Mobile MultimediaEquipped with a Hybrid TV tuner, the F8P gives the user maximum versatility with the ability to take advantage of both digital and analog signals. A card type remote control is incorporated, in line with the chic portability of the F8P lifestyle, giving the user the ability to take charge of entertainment while being easily carried. Furthermore, a built-in swivel webcam allows instant high-resolution face to face communication without the hassle of external connections and messy wires.Unparalleled GamingTo power the most demanding 3D intense games, the F8P is equipped with abundant graphics power with top of the line specifications, including the latest Intel Core2 Duo processors, up to 2GB of DDR2 memory, DirectX 10 support and a choice of the most powerful graphics processing systems currently available: the world’s first ATI Mobility Radeon HD2400 graphics engine, stocked with 256MB of physical VRAM and HyperMemory up to 1024MB.Seamless SecurityTo give business travellers peace of mind, the F8P features safeguards that combine high-level security with ease of use. The fingerprint authentication allows for heavy duty security of data with the convenience of a finger swipe. The Trusted Platform Module (TPM) encrypts data, password retention and system log on for added data protection measures.F8P (F8P24MD25LBU-PW) Specification· Intel® Centrino® Duo Processor Technology- Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor T7700 (2.4GHz, 800MHz, 4MB L2)- Intel® Next-Gen Wireless-N 4965ABGN network connection 802.11a/b/g/n- Intel® 965PM Express Chipset· Genuine Microsoft® Windows Vista™ Business· ATI Radeon HD2400 (with 256MB VRAM) and up to 1028MB Hypermemory· 14.1” WXGA+ (glare 1440 x 900) LCD· 2GB DDR2 RAM and 250GB SATA 5400rpm HDD· TPM-Trusted Platform Module and DVD Super-Multi Double Layer Drive with LightScribe· Integrated Bluetooth™ 2.0 + Enhanced Data Rate· Built-in 1.3 Mega Pixels swivel Web-Camera and Built-in 6-in-1 Card Reader· Accessories: 6-cell battery, notebook bag and mouse· Limited edition only for Christmas SeasonAvailability: After 20th Dec 07 RSP: S$ 2,998 (GST Included)

Arctic Cooling's Accelero Xtreme Plus II VGA Cooler

The new VGA cooler has a copper base, five 6mm heatpipes and 83 aluminium cooling fins aside from the 9cm fans. It is reported to be able to fit a wide variety of cards including the newly released GTX 560.

Read the full article from Expreview.